What’s in a Name?

Have you ever thought about how strange the concepts of names is?
These words are chosen for us at birth that help others identify us and to distinguish us from the other billions of people in the world. Some names have become legend… Julius Caesar, Alexander, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther King Jr. Others have become infamous and forever connected with great evil… Hitler, Stalin, Voldemort. Ok, so that last name isn’t real, but if you know the story that he is associated with, you know that that name was so deeply connected to the trauma of an entire society that the name was not said out loud at all.

What is it that makes a name famous? What links it to an emotional response within us? Why is it that when you hear the name of your ex, or a deceased loved one an emotional response is triggered within you? It’s not the name doing that, it’s not even the person, per se. The response is mostly caused by the story that that named is linked to in our minds. Good or bad, the combination of consonants and vowels doesn’t mean anything without the story that goes along with them. The same is true about the name of God.

The problem with the name “God” is that it doesn’t really tell us much. For a lot of people this is just a word that was used to scare them or motivate them to stop being naughty as a child, teen, or young adult (maybe still?). The name “God” has a negative story behind it in our heads because of the way that humans have abused it. The cool thing is that the God of the Bible has many names, all names that are linked to a story. I asked the world of Facebook what their favorite names for God are, and the responses that I got all shared very similar elements. They were all linked to a personal or corporate story about how they have experienced God.

Most of the names are names that the biblical authors used, however the God of the Bible has a proper name, YHWH — pronounced Yahweh. It is the name that is used in conjunction with the word “elohim” (which means god or spiritual being) in Hebrew. We need to remember that to an ancient Mesopotamian person, such as an Israelite was, saying “god sent me” wouldn’t really mean much. Their response would likely be, “which god?” See they lived with the reality of a spiritual realm populated with many gods. So it was important for their story, and for our story, for the God of the Bible to have a name. What does YHWH mean though?

“After all this time? ” “Always.”

If you’re a Harry Potter fan, just reading those words probably wrecked you a little bit. Why is it that an entire generation will never hear, see, or say the word “always” without donning a little tear in the corner of the eye? Here’s my suspicion. The story surrounding the exchange that climaxes with these words speaks deeply into the pit of our human desire. If you’re not up on it, or you’ve let your dedication to the 2nd most influential story in my life slip here’s what it’s all about.

Harry Potter is given a glimpse into the memories of his least favorite professor, his nemesis who he has thought of as a bad guy and the murderer of his favorite professor a year earlier. In a stunning display of images it becomes clear that this man was a childhood friend of his mother. In fact, she was his boyhood crush. He was in love with her, and continued to be in love with her even though she met another boy, got married, had a baby, and most of all… never loved him back. This love extended beyond her death and, though he had a strange way of showing it, on to Harry. When confronted as to why he felt this way about the boy, his response is to display a particular piece of magic that inextricably gives away his deep love for Harry’s mother. When asked, “after all these years?” He replies, “Always.”

I believe this impacts us so deeply because this is the kind of love that we desperately seek throughout the course of our human journey. It is a love that few of us ever find. It is a love that is the stuff of fairy tales and epic adventures. Real people just can’t love us that way. They move on, they change. Even though we may have meant it with all of our hearts when we told our childhood neighbor that we loved them and were going to marry them, chances are at some point we grew up, grew apart, and took a different path. However, that love is not non-existent. That love, as it turns out, has a name.

Grammar for the Win

I was out for a run today, thinking about the normal things that I think about lately… Hebrew grammar. I know it’s terrible. It’s really awful, but I promise you this time it was worth it. In Exodus 3, Moses is up on Mt. Sinai speaking to a burning bush, and lo and behold it turns out he’s talking to the God of Israel. Pretty weird. And the voice inside of the bush gives him a job, go to Egypt and set the captive Israelite slaves free. Moses pulls a total teenager move and is like “me? why? nah, surely you should send someone else?” When he realizes that this bush is not letting him off the hook he’s like well fine man, but I don’t even know you. What’s your name? Who am I supposed to tell these folks sent me? God replies, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ” (Ex. 3:14).

So maybe you read that and you are like Yeah! Awesome I know this story! Or you are like what does that even mean. Chances are you don’t really know what this means, because well I don’t know that I’ve ever thought about it that hard. It’s just become another one of those “things that Christians say but don’t really understand, but don’t know they don’t understand it.” So here’s what’s happening under the surface of all of this. Like I said before, the story behind the name is what is important, and God’s name is YHWH.

Read from right to left it is יהוה and the letters are Yod He Vav He. What is here is a combination of 2 forms of the verb “he will be.” Now, Hebrew and other related language grammar is weird because depending on where a word is in the context of a sentence has some say in whether it is past, present, or future. This can be a bit disconcerting, but I think that the ambiguity is beautiful. Also single words can form entire sentences, because the subject is implied. So in Hebrew YH-YH means he will be or he is and some scholars speculate that HWH is the verb “was” in Aramaic and was likely how it was formulated in earlier forms of the Hebrew language. So you smash em together and voila YH-WH.

Ok I made you read a really nerdy paragraph, but God’s name literally means I am/I will be what I was. All 3 senses past, present, and future are accounted for, God’s name, YHWH means that God will be the same. Always. I don’t know about you but I take great comfort in that, based on who God is revealed to be in both scriptures but also in my own life and my own story of redemption. There is comfort to be found in knowing that I am always loved, cared for, and looked after by a God, a YHWH, whose mind never changes about me. I am not subject to abandonment, to moving on, to boredom, or even stipulations to receive that love. It just always has been, and always will be there for me and for you to embrace.

Is Your God Big Enough?

I’ll submit to you a single question. Does your God fit the bill? Can you honestly evaluate your understanding and your conception of God and say “yes, absolutely, without a doubt, God is ALWAYS.” And don’t just say it because you have been programmed to say things without actually understanding the meaning of them. Do you really, truly, in the depths of your heart believe that the god that you have entrusted your life to has loved and will love you ALWAYS, regardless of what you have done? Because if your god, your conception of the power that drives your life is more like a cosmic sugar daddy, or a lofty judge in the sky doling out karmic justice, then you, dear friend, need a bigger god. You need YHWH, you need ALWAYS.

And for me, there is no better example of the radical “always” love of YHWH then the fact that he became human to show us what that love looks like, how to live into it, and how to radically transform the world as members of his family. That always love took him to the cross, but the power of that love overcame the power of death. All of this was done so that you and I might hear the world “always” and be reminded of a love so true that we should be willing to sacrifice everything to make that love known to the world around us. That is a story that makes this name legendary, one of a kind, and radical. So if your god doesn’t inspire that reaction, that assurance, that peace — if you are still fumbling around hoping that your god will love and provide for you, I invite you to get a bigger god. I invite you to meet with ALWAYS.